When Things Fall Apart
by scubysnak
Summary: Catherine and Sara are sent back to a crime scene to look for additional evidence. Something really bad happens and someone gets hurt really bad. CS Friendship only.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own 'em…

**A/N: **This story was written as part of the angst challenge on CSI Projects. It's been three weeks since I submitted it and I still have received the story I requested. I decided to say "to hell with it" and post what I had written. If there's one thing I can't stand it's people who don't stick to deadlines. I apologize in advance if this story sucks! I was told no sex, no profanity and no death. I'm not sure how one writes ANGST w/o those, but I gave it a shot.

"How long has it been now? Four, five hours?" Catherine asked as sweat dripped from her brow.

The brunette who sat beside her could only smile as she clung to her hand tightly, "It's only been about an hour, Cath. Don't worry, they'll find us."

"I know they'll find us," a ragged cough shook her body. "I just hope they find us before it's too late."

"I told Grissom this was a bad idea," Sara said as she shook her head stubbornly.

The bad idea being that she and Catherine should head back to the previous night's crime scene and look for more evidence.

"_Gil, I know we were on the tail-end of a double shift, but we didn't miss anything. It's pointless for you to send me back there with her…today," Sara said._

"_This is not a negotiation, Sara. I'm your supervisor and I make the decisions around here. Whether you want to believe it or not, you two missed something out there. It's all about the evidence and if a single piece of it is missing, then we'll never be able to put the puzzle completely together," he cocked his head in that knowing and self-assured way that had always infuriated the younger woman. _

_As she watched him turn and wander back down the halls of the lab she was dumbstruck to understand how anyone could assume that she had been in a relationship with the man. Admittedly the man was a genius, but he lacked terribly in the social skills department._

_As she felt a warm hand placed on the small of her back, she turned and found herself face to face with the one person who had managed to win her heart. As she smiled and opened her mouth to speak, the curt strawberry blonde who was the bane of her existence cut short her brief encounter, "Sidle, let's go. I don't want to be on the clock all day."_

_Her lover smiled and winked before pushing open the door to the locker room and leaving her alone in the hall to squelch the rising tide of anger that filled her whenever she had to work in close quarters with Catherine Willows. After seven years, the woman was still an inflamed and bothersome boil on her butt._

_She punched the wall lightly before following the wake of Catherine the Great._

Wincing in obvious pain, Catherine shifted as much as her confined state would allow. "How bad is it?"

Sara avoided making eye contact with her and instead, looked up at the tattered remnants of a floor above them. "It's not bad. Not bad at all."

She lied. She lied for her sake and for Catherine's. She could see the head of bolt that ran through the beam. There were several others like it along the length of it. They were sticking out at odd angles or sheared off to sharps points. Unless the one laying over Catherine had snapped off at the wood, it was piercing her body now. Her only hope was that the weight and pressure of the joist pinning her would keep enough pressure on the wound that she wouldn't bleed to death before help arrived.

_For two hours they had combed over every room in the old farm house. And with each passing moment, their tempers had flared exponentially. Neither woman wanted to be there—especially in each other's company._

"_I thought you processed this door last night," Catherine huffed as she lowered herself on her haunches to examine a closet door in the master bedroom._

"_I did," was the short, terse reply offered by the brunette._

_Catherine stood and faced Sara, her hand on her hip, clearly poised for battle. "If you had bothered to dust the door Sara Sidle," she enunciated each word clearly and harshly, "there would be fingerprint dust on it somewhere. Or did you use invisible finger print dust this time?"_

"_What?" Sara shouted as she rose to her full height and pulled off her gloves. "I know you're not bringing up that potato silencer case…again!"_

"_I'm just saying that __**if**__ you had dusted the door, there __**would**__ be dust on it somewhere. And there's not. Can you explain that?"_

_Sara snorted and looked around the room, mentally retracing her steps from the previous night as she looked down at the diagram she had drawn of the room. The expression on her face told Catherine that something was off._

"_What are you thinking?" she asked as she followed Sara's gaze around the room._

"_That I obviously didn't dust that door last night," she responded coolly._

"_Ha!" the blonde shouted in triumph. "I knew you hadn't."_

"_Let me finish. I didn't dust it because that door wasn't there last night."_

"_Seriously, Sara, a door just doesn't appear overnight," Catherine mocked her._

"_I know that. But here, look," Sara handed Catherine her notes as she moved to the wall Catherine was standing near. "This coat rack," she grabbed it and moved it in front of the door, "was standing here. The walls are all beadboard and you can see that the hinges aren't on the outside of this door. I didn't move the coat rack so I missed the little handle on the door."_

"I can tell you're lying, Sidle. Poker isn't your strong suit," the trapped woman laughed, which caused her to grimace in pain.

"Try not to move, Cath. The less you move, the less likely you are to cause more damage. We don't know if you've injured your spinal cord or not."

Sara didn't have the people skills that Catherine did, and she definitely didn't know how to calm someone down. The last thing she wanted was for Catherine to panic—and up to this point, she hadn't. Then again, the last thing she really wanted to happen was for herself to begin to panic. It was dark, they were in a tight space and Catherine was hurt badly. Sara had to focus on the fact that Catherine needed her and needed her to remain calm.

She took deep breaths and repeated over and over in her head _it's okay, everything will be okay._

"Can you try moving it again?" she asked. There was a look of fair gracing her usually charming features that Sara had never seen before.

She could see that she was growing paler. Her matted and damp hair clung to her forehead like a second skin. She wasn't sure that Catherine even knew that other than being pinned she was most likely impaled.

"_So, we have an entire room in this house that we didn't check," Catherine surmised._

"_I think it's a little more than that," Sara huffed as she moved the coat rack back out of the way. "Someone has obviously been in…or left…our crime scene since we processed it last night."_

_Catherine stood back, rubbing her chin. "This isn't good. This really isn't good. It means the suspect could have been here the whole time. The entire time we were processing the scene, he could've been here. He listened to everything we said. He basically knows our entire case."_

"_Cath, if he…or she…is our suspect, they knew our case to start with since they committed the crime. Now, let's see what's on the other side of the door, shall we?"_

_Catherine drew her gun and stood back at the ready in case their suspect had returned—or had never left._

_Sara pulled firmly on the door, not budging it. She even put her foot on the wall, looked back over her shoulder apologetically for ruining potential evidence, and jerked even harder on the door._

_She stood back and let out a heavy sigh. She cocked her head in different directions, studying the door._

"_It's a door, Sidle, not a physics problem. You either push it or pull it open. You tried pulling, now try pushing."_

_Unable to form a hasty and burning retort, Sara merely nodded her head before pushing on the door with both hands. It didn't open, but she did feel it give some under her hands. She pushed harder and the door edged open slightly. "It feels like something is blocking the door from opening."_

_Catherine hung her head and stated the obvious, "Then get a running start and put all your weight behind it."_

_Sara took a few steps backwards and lunged at the door, opening it enough to slide her hand in between the jamb and the door itself._

"_Almost. Try again."_

_She stepped even further back into the room and took a few quick steps and threw her body weight solidly against the door. The door opened immediately, but her momentum sent her careening into the far wall of the tiny room. She stumbled and fell to her knees. _

_Catherine stepped into the room, swinging her gun in all directions, before holstering it and offering Sara her hand. _

"How long now?" a visibly suffering blue-eyed CSI asked. Fatigue was evident in her voice and it scared Sara.

Sara looked down at her watch and groaned. "It's been three hours now. I know it hurts, Cath, but you gotta stay awake." She brushed the hair back behind Catherine's ears and then pulled off her own CSI vest and rolled it, placing it under Catherine's head.

"Sar, do me a favor?" The way she said it hinted that she did understand the severity of her situation, even if she hadn't verbalized it to Sara. And Sara certainly hadn't said a word about her suspicions to Catherine.

"Sure, Cath, anything you want. What is it?" Sara's features softened a bit. She and Catherine had never been the best friends and there had always been hostility between the two of them, but somehow, having Catherine just shorten her name and softly ask for a favor, erased the previous hostilities.

Catherine bit her lip and turned her head away, but not soon enough for Sara to miss the tears that were beginning to fall freely from the corners of her eyes.

"If I…if I…" she choked back a sob before taking a deep breath and continuing, "if I don't make it, tell Lindsey I love her."

"She knows that and you're going to be fine, Cat," Sara gripped her hand tighter.

"Let me finish," she pleaded. "I know this is bad. I can't feel my legs and I'm starting to get cold. I know what's going to happen, okay? Just tell Linds I love her," she choked back a strangled sob, "and make sure she stays out of trouble. And tell Greg…tell Greg I'm sorry."

"_Well, you certainly know how to make an entrance, Sidle," Catherine laughed as she tugged Sara to her feet. _

_Sara pulled her flashlight from her vest and walked toward the corner of the closet-like room. _

"_Is that blood?" Catherine as she leaned over her shoulder._

"_I think it might…uhpmmmhhhh!"_

_Suddenly both women found the floor beneath give way as they fell through. They had been on the second floor of the house. When the dust settled, they found themselves not on the first floor, but in the basement, beneath much of the floors above them._

_Sara had landed a safe distance away from the rubble, but Catherine hadn't been so lucky. Once the younger woman was able to shake her head clear and the dust settled around them, she inched carefully through the darkness calling Catherine's name._

"_Here. I'm over here," Catherine had mumbled and coughed. Through the darkness, Sara could hear Catherine grunting as if she was trying to move something heavy. When she moved closer, she could clearly see that Catherine had fallen in such a way that she was pinned beneath a heavy floor joist._

_Sara stood frozen on the spot, watching Catherine struggle to free herself._

_Catherine's admonishing tone snapped her out of her trance. "Sara! Sara! Sidle! Get over here and help me!"_

Greg's name had barely escaped from Catherine's lips when questions began to dance through Sara's head.

"Greg? Why?" A hint of confusion painted the edges of Sara's question.

Catherine closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, ignoring the question.

"Cath," Sara shook her shoulder gently with one hand while she squeezed the one clutched in her even tighter, "why do you want me to apologize to Greg for you?"

Cath started to shake her head, tears squeezing out through her tightly closed eyes, "We're seeing each other."

If Sara had been shocked when the floor gave way earlier, she was now completely flabbergasted. "You and Greg. You're…seeing… each other….Wow…."

"About three months now," Catherine said evenly; her emotions now in check. She was still breathing deeply and that troubled Sara.

Catherine continued, "We didn't want anyone to know. It just started out as….a thing. And now…."

Sara chuckled almost quietly, "And now you're a couple. I can't believe he didn't tell me."

"We agreed we'd keep it to ourselves. The last thing we wanted to do was let everyone know and then break up."

"Still," Sara persisted, "I consider him one of my best friends. He could have told me." She wordlessly stared at a corner in the room for a moment before adding, "I should have known something was up when he quit flirting with me."

"I always assumed something would happen between the two of you," Catherine admitted. "I never in a million years expected this. For Christ's sake, he's closer to Lindsey's age than mine."

_The junior CSI snapped out of her reverie and hustled to Catherine's side where she was still struggling to lift the heavy piece of lumber from her pinned body._

"_Just try lifting it," Catherine grunted as she continued to struggle._

"_I can't just lift it," Sara explained as she approached the wooden piece from various angles. "I need to find a fulcrum."_

"_Arggghhh!" Catherine barked in response. "While you try to work out your physics' problem, Einstein, just remember that I'm trapped under here." She threw herself backwards in frustration and weariness._

"_It's not that easy, Catherine. There's more to consider here than lifting this beam off of you. I have to see what else is resting on it. The last thing we'd want is to move this and find out that something leaning against it in that pile there is holding the floor up over us. What good would it do to save you from this only to have the house literally fall on top of us?"_

_Catherine knew that Sara's reasoning and caution were sensible. But being sensible and cautious was never her strength._

Trying to lighten the mood, Sara joked, "So I suppose comments about you robbing the cradle are fair game now."

"Very funny, Sidle. You know, you want to be miffed with Greg about not telling you about us, but did you ever tell him about Nick?" It was now Catherine's turn to laugh, which only caused her more pain. "Don't think I haven't noticed the two of you. I have to admit, I don't think anyone else has. Gil wouldn't notice if you showed up for work with an elephant trunk instead of a nose. And Greg, well, our Greggo has been a little too pre-occupied with me to notice what's been going on between you and Nicky."

Sara opened her mouth to speak and quickly closed it. "How?...what?...I…"

"I've just noticed the way the two of you act around one another now. You're still professional, but there's a tension in the air now that only exists between people who've been sleeping together."

For her part, Sara still couldn't speak. She stared at Catherine in shocked disbelief.

With her pale complexion, the serious tone that Catherine's words took on rattled Sara, "Nick's a good guy, Sar. And I know we've never been friends, but I do respect you. You're a good CSI. I know how committed you are to things. You two are good for each other. Be good to him. Don't let your demons catch up with you and screw things up between the two of you."

"I…," Sara hung her head briefly before looking back up with a smile-etched face, "I love him."

Before she had a chance to comment on Sara's obvious heartfelt confession, Catherine said, "Did you hear that?" She lifted her head and cocked and ear toward the unstable floor above them.

Dust and smaller fragments of debris began to rain down on them.

Sara's first instinct was to move her body to cover Catherine's in an effort to protect her from anything else that might happen.

When the dust settled again, Sara sprang to her feet, "Down here! We're in the basement!" She shouted and hoped that whoever was above them—and hopefully looking for them—would hear her.

"_I swear, when I get out of here, I'm going to hunt Gil Grissom down and remove his testicles with fingernail clippers," Catherine muttered in frustration._

"_Don't be so hard on Gil," Sara defended her mentor. "He just sent us out here to do our job. And he was obviously right, we had missed something—and entire room."_

"_It figures that you would defend him."_

_Anger flashed and Sara took a defensive position. "Just what is that supposed to mean, Catherine?"_

"_You know exactly what it means."_

"_You're trapped under a lot of debris; I wouldn't waste my time trying to climb up on some pedestal to put me down right now, Willows."_

_An eerie silence fell over the two women as they each pondered their position. Sara briefly considered trying to find a way to crawl out and leave the trapped woman behind. She dismissed the idea swiftly. As much as she despised the woman at times, she had a daughter and the little girl had already lost a father. Losing her mother might be the straw that broke the camel's back. Having been bounced around foster care herself, she wasn't willing to leave Lindsey parentless._

"Sara!" Nick's Texas drawl cut through the tense atmosphere.

Sara gulped and half-cried, half shouted, "Nick, we're down here. Catherine's trapped."

A beam of light danced down into the dungeon where the two women found themselves helpless. "I'll get you out. Just stay right there, babe."

"Sara, Catherine—are you two okay down there?" Gil Grissom's voice fell on them like a sledgehammer.

Recalling Catherine's earlier threat, Sara laughed and said, "When we get out of here, you're going to need an ambulance standing by."

"Is Catherine hurt that badly?" Grissom asked.

"Yes," quipped Sara, "but she has a medical procedure she's going to perform on you."

"Oh, right. Well," he laughed nervously, "let's work on getting the two of you out of there."

Sara turned around and walked back over to Catherine's now prone body. "They'll have us out of here in a few minutes, Cath."

Catherine didn't respond or acknowledge Sara's comment.

"Cath?" Sara shook her shoulder firmly before reaching down and grabbing her wrist and feeling for a pulse.

It was weak and fast. "No, we're almost out of here," she cried as she rubbed her cheek and squeezed her hand. "Wake up, Cath. Come on, wake up. Wake up for Lindsey. Wake up for Greg. Wake up long enough to yell at me. Please."

She squeezed her fingers between the unconscious body of her blonde colleague and the piece of flooring and could feel the metal bolt where it met Catherine's flesh. Tears began to well up in her eyes. She'd been right. Catherine was hurt worse than either of them realized.

"_Go ahead, I know you want to," Catherine said, causing Sara to turn around and stare at her with a puzzled expression._

"_I said, go ahead. Find a way out of here. There's no sense in the two of us dying here."_

"_Why do you do that?" Sara asked. When Catherine didn't respond, she elaborated on what she meant, "Seriously, why do you just assume the worst about me? Just earlier you assumed that I didn't do my job and now you assume that I'd leave you here, in an unstable house, alone and trapped. Do you really think so little of me? What did I ever do to deserve this opinion you have of me?"_

_The house shifted. Maybe it was only the wind blowing or things that had crumbled further settling, but it unnerved Catherine._

"_If we ever get out of here, we can argue the salient points of my displeasure where you are concerned."_

_That was Catherine effectively slamming the door on the topic. Sara dropped to the floor beside her and pulled her knees up to her chest._

"_We don't have to be enemies," she muttered._

_Catherine snorted and Sara could sense that there was something catty there, waiting to be said. She was surprised when instead of snapping and firing a verbal assault at her that was sure to hit its target, she simply reached out and took Sara's hand._

"_It's hot in here," Catherine breathed out. "Then again, maybe it's the fact that I'm trapped under wood, plaster, insulation and God knows what else."_

"_Hey, it could be worse," Sara mused and then thought better of her mistake when she saw the fury in Catherine's stormy blue eyes. "Or maybe not. Why don't you tell me something about yourself that I don't know yet? Maybe that'll help us pass the time."_

"_How long has it been now? Four, five hours?" Catherine asked as sweat dripped off her brow._

"Grissom!!" Sara yelled at the top of her lungs. "Hurry!"

"We're going as fast as we can, Sara. We have to hook to something secure before we can get someone down there to you two," he explained.

"Well, if you don't hurry up, it's going to be one survivor and one corpse you pull up. She's unconscious now."

Just then, Nick appeared at his side. "Okay, we're ready," he said looking at Grissom before he turned his attention to Sara. "I'm coming down"

"No! Send a fireman down with a saw and an EMT. We need to cut through the joist pinning Catherine down and get her out of here now."

"I'll bring a saw," he argued.

"Nick, please. Stay up there. Send a fireman down. They're trained for this sort of thing."

Grissom cocked his head to the side in agreement, "She's right, Nick. Let the professionals deal with this."

As Grissom and Nick backed away, two firemen in harnesses, one of which was carrying a saw, appeared in the opening. Two firemen helped lower them over the edge and down to the waiting women.

They removed their harnesses and then immediately went to Catherine. "I've removed everything I could that didn't seem to be supporting anything else," Sara explained. "I just couldn't risk moving the joist because it has something at that end," she pointed to the far end, "which extends all the way up to the floor above. I didn't know if it was still supporting something and I didn't want to bring the whole house down. And because…one of the bolts is piercing her."

A hand on her shoulder made her turn around and there was Nick. Sara threw her arms around his neck and clung to him, sobbing. He led her over to the ropes and put one around her. After giving a thumbs-up to the firemen overhead, they slowly raised her up to the first floor of the house.

She intended to never take her eyes off of Catherine's nearly lifeless body laying there. Grissom thought otherwise as he grabbed her by the elbow and wordlessly escorted her out of the crumbling home. Worry lines criss-crossed his face like the paths left by racing rocks out in the desert.

While the medic dabbed and wiped at every cut and scratch on Sara, she stared ahead listening to the shouts and directions still coming from the house. Her spirits lightened a bit when she heard the sporadic sounds of the saw. It meant that they were cutting Catherine free.

Sara knew that someone was speaking to her, yet she paid them no attention. It wasn't until the medic moved in front of her and blocked her sight of the house that she looked up and spoke, "I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

The young woman who had been taking care of her spoke firmly, "We need to go ahead and get you on a gurney in the back, Ms. Sidle. We're going to go ahead and take you to the hospital for x-rays."

"I'm fine," she argued and attempted to stand. The two pairs of hands on her shoulders, one belonging to Grissom and the other to Nick, whom she hadn't even realized had joined her, held her still.

"You're going to the hospital, no questions asked," Nick said firmly as he climbed in the back of the ambulance and held his hand out for Sara to take.

She considered arguing, wanting to insist that she should stay and make sure that Catherine got out alive. She closed her eyes briefly and thought about saying that. In the end, Catherine's warning echoed through her head and she relented, doing as Nick wanted and going to the hospital for x-rays.

XXXXX

Sara had long ago sent Nick away. His pacing and fretting over her was more than she could handle at the moment. She was dressed in a blue hospital gown, perched on the edge of one of those uncomfortable hospital beds when Greg, looking ten years older and much worse for wear, walked through the door.

One look at him and the tears rolled from her like a flooded river breaks through a levy. Greg immediately crossed to her and wrapped her in a tight hug. No words were spoken as the two clung to each other with the hope that a new friendship and a budding romance would have time to blossom.

No one would ever know how she felt sitting beside her nemesis and watching the life slowly drain from her. Even now, only a few hours after her harrowing ordeal had come to a close, she knew that Catherine's fight had just begun. As the two friends sat there, comfortably embracing each other, a doctor, looking as bad as the two of them felt and wearing bloody scrubs walked through the door.

Greg jumped to his feet and Sara hung her head. She already knew what he was going to say. They didn't walk into a room looking like someone had just run over their puppy when things had gone well.

"I'm Doctor Bailey. I was Ms. Willows' surgeon," he said as he ran his fingers over his balding head.

"Is she…" the hope in Greg's voice mixed with fear, making him sound like a thirteen year old going through puberty.

The doctor gave Greg the old 'down boy' motion with both hands before continuing. "I was able to stop the bleeding. She had a lot of damage, but thankfully she didn't bleed to death because of the weight that was on her. She's stable…for now. For how long, I don't know."

Sara sat there in stunned silence as the doctor ran down the laundry list of injuries to Catherine—a crushed pelvis, perforated intestine, multiple rib fractures, a broken ankle, dislocated kneecap, hairline fracture over the occipital lobe. The list went on, but she tuned him out. She could only sit and wonder how had she survived with little more than a few scrapes, scratches and bruises and Catherine was hanging on to life by a thin strand?

A beeping sound followed quickly by her room door being thrown backwards against the wall brought her back to the present. The doctor and Greg were both gone. Over the PA system she could clearly hear, "Doctor Bailey, code blue. Doctor Bailey, code blue in recovery."

Sara lay back on the white sheets in the room laden with the scent of antiseptic and waited for what she believed to be the inevitable news.


End file.
